Up To Us
by Omikami Kazegami
Summary: When an Invader is captured, it is the duty of every available Irken to aid in their safe return. As Invader Tenn struggles to escape from the Resisty, The Tallest call every remaining Invader into battle, and Zim decides to take on the mission personally
1. Chapter 1

AN: Ooh, new story! So, I'm basing this one on the rather threadbare synopsis of the two-part final episode that was planned for the second season of Invader Zim. If it goes well, I'll also write my interpretation of Invader Dib, the telemovie that was also in its' infancy. As always I beg for feedback. Authors need feedback, especially me. I DEMAND TO KNOW YOUR THOUGHTS!

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It was not a signal Zim had ever expected to answer.

While his gloved fingers danced lightly over the Voot Cruisers' controls with practiced ease, his mighty Irken mind was in shock.

The Invaders were an elite corps, undefeated in combat. Soldiers without peer. Things like this simply did not happen to an Invader. Invaders do not fail. Invaders do not falter. And Invaders certainly do not allow themselves to be captured by the enemy.

The tiny red light flashed incessantly, the bulb that had remained inactive for years now worked perfectly. The Call: When that little red alarm was lit, all available Invaders were to report to the Tallest for active combat duty immediately. An Invader was in trouble.

Zim had been in his base when the Call had sounded; working on some experiment or another. Nothing important. _Zim never seems to be working on anything important lately_, Zim thought, _my conquest of Earth has taken far too long. It is an insult to My Tallest!_

A small monitor kept track of the position of the Massive, directing Zim to it. If he took the right wormhole, kept the cruiser running hot, Zim could reach the Tallest in a matter of hours.

I will show the Tallest that their Zim has not lost the knack for destruction, and VICTORY! I will remind them of my greatness. No other Invader can succeed the way I will. I WILL rescue Invader Tenn. It's all up to me. I AM ZIM!

_Yes, it's all up to me._


	2. Loose Ends

GIR was running. He didn't know why. He didn't know when he had started. He didn't know when he'd finish. All that mattered was running.

Running, and screaming.

The little robot flipped over the arm of the couch, bounding over Minimooses' head. The purple moose paid his companion no heed, preferring instead to simply float in place, squeaking. His vacant stare concealed the inconceivably advanced brain that Zim had serendipitously provided him. Minimoose often had several trains of thought running parallel to each other; he could do this without slowing down at all. As GIR collided headlong with the television, shattering the screen into a million pieces, Minimoose had only one thought: _Why did Zim leave me alone with him?_

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Tenn sat sullenly in the corner of the cell. Her antennae dropped over her eyes, which were set in an icy glare. The focus of the glare, her Vortian prison guard, watched her warily, a slight tremble in his hands: Everyone had heard the stories about the Invaders.

" Do I frighten you?" She growled, her zippered teeth clenched. The Vortian started at the sound, causing Tenn to smirk, but said nothing, " You! Vortian filth! When an Irken speaks, lesser beings listen."

" Y- yeah, keep talking, captive. You don't s- seem like such a superior being now, huh?" The guards' horns curled tighter.

" Silence! You stinking fools have no idea what you're dealing with. The Armada _is _coming, Vort-stink. You think your crew and one ship can take down the Massive?" Tenn smirked, stalking towards the guard, " You have no chance. Give up now and release me, before I do it myself."

The Vortian simply flicked his gaze towards the door, made of cold steel with a green light issuing from the frame, " Vetkin 'Splodey system. Courtesy of our new friends, the Meekrob. You can't leave or… Well, you know. As for the Armada, how could they come? You haven't sent any distress signals, you can't. They don't even know you're here! You're stuck, you little green idiot. Sit down."

Tenn snarled, set her jaw, and sat down in the corner again. _You just wait, fool. You just wait. It's up to me to escape. The Tallest expect it. But the Empire will come. You'll see. The Armada is probably on its way right now._

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" Invader Stink, reporting for duty, my Tallest!"

The tiny Irken saluted smartly and marched off to join the ranks. The Tallest stared out onto an endless sea of green skin and red uniforms. The antennae of the horde moved constantly with excitement, giving the impression of a swarm of ants. It had been a long time since the Irken Empire had been able to flex its' military muscle.

" Have we located where Invader Tenn is being held?" Purple asked in his characteristic nasal drawl. His skinny arms were filled with various snacks, which he munched on somberly, unable to keep still for long.

" Yes. Those Resisty fools didn't even bother to encrypt their ransom message. We've tracked it to Meekrob. They're in orbit; just the one ship." Red chuckled at the inferiority of his enemy, " Using the equipment left in Tenns' base, we're able to keep an eye on the Meekrob and their planet. There's no indication that they even knew the Resisty was there. Incompetent fools."

" Shouldn't we expect a trap?"

" They called themselves the Resisty. Don't expect too much in the way of intelligence from them." Red scoffed, taking a large bite from a burrito, " Mobilize the Armada, the mission is underway as of this moment." Flaky pastry and chunks of meat landed everywhere.

" My Tallest! My Tallest! My Tallest, hey! I'm here, my Tallest! Zim is here!"

The Tallest fell silent. The assembled troops fell silent. The Bridge crew fell silent. Zim continued to yell. Reds' eye twitched. Somewhere, a Control Brain shuddered. The Irken forces looked into the faces of their leaders, and saw immediately what they were thinking: _Whoever sent the Call to him doesn't have long to live._

" My Tallest! I have arrived! ZIM HAS ARRIVED! _I_ AM ZIM! Me! Zim is me! ZIM!"


	3. Guess Who's Finally Appearing!

Hoo boy, that took a while, huh? I think I promised some people that this would be up, like, the week after chapter two? And it wasn't! Well, a whole lot of stuff happened to me. Family members ended up in hospital, exams happened, the Christmas break happened. And I've had to make a choice which is pretty much gonna affect every aspect of my life, for the rest of my life. It's been a bad couple of months. But! That's over now, I don't wanna hear about it any more, and I have two new chapters! Holy poop, that doubles what I have now! And Dib's in this one! I actually forgot to put him in before. So, on with the story... finally.

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" Special mission? But… It sounds like vanguard work to me. My Tallest, I wish to stay with the Armada."

" Vanguard? No, Zim, not at all." Red grinned, stifling a laugh, " You would be the one to retrieve Invader Tenn. Trust us, you're the only one we would ever send for this mission."

" Yeah! If you go alone, you'll be exploded in seconds!" Purple exclaimed.

Red jabbed Purple with an elbow, " Uh, what he means is you're the only one skilled enough."

" Hmm… Yes, I am rather skilled… Okay! I'll do it, My Tallest! Zim will not fail you!" With that the view screen went blank.

" We may have gotten rid of him for good this time." Red murmured as the crowd erupted in applause.

" Do you think we've gone too far?" Purple asked.

Red simply shook his head.

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Dib eyed the door apprehensively. He was unsure about whether he wanted to open it.

At the very least, he'd find that Zim was home, or the security system was armed. And in the worst-case scenario he'd find what had made Zim vanish. If he closed his eyes and listened closely, he could hear strange, terrifying noises issuing from the bowels of the house. And squeaks.

Dib wondered about the squeaks.

" What am I doing just standing out here?" Dib asked himself, " I've probably faced much worse than what's in there. I need to know where Zim's gone. I need… to stop talking to myself."

Dib sighed quietly as he opened the door. He could hear screaming now, and the ever-louder squeak rang in his ears. There was a voice, too; Dib recognized it as Zims' computer:

" No! Don't touch that! I need that to function! Minimoose, help me!"

A plaintive squeak sounded, and before it ended Dib had dived into the toilet-elevator, wondering yet again why Zim had thought this an acceptable design choice. The elevator didn't descend so much as it dropped, crashing loudly against the floor as it came to a stop. Dib had been to the lower levels of Zims' base before, and it looked exactly the same now, but with bits missing. Wires sparked uselessly, missing a few feet of crucial cable, buttons where strewn everywhere, maple syrup coated the walls. And in the center of this was GIR, scooping out handfuls of the inner workings of a large computer console.

" Squeak!" Squeaked a small purple moose, floating uselessly in a corner. GIR turned at the noise.

" Halt!" commanded the robot, his blue parts now red, " You may not proceed further, intruder!"

Wordlessly, Dib reached into his pocket and produced a small blue ball. He squeezed it, producing a high-pitched squeak. GIR froze, mesmerized, as Dib bounced the ball once, twice, and then hurled it into the corner of the room. The tiny robot rocketed after it, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Dib stood motionless for a moment, before shaking his head and continuing further into the base. A huge viewing screen dominated the back wall; a crack had traveled from one corner almost into the center of it. A slight breeze would break it completely. Suddenly, as if on cue, Zim appeared on the screen:

" Computer! Computer, come in! It is Zim! Computer? Obey me! Computer? Minimoose?… GIR?"

Dib cleared his throat, and the Irken noticed him for the first time, " I think GIR broke your computer. So, I've noticed you've been gone for days now. Where are you? Finally given up?"

" Dib! You! Get your filthy head of giant stinking human out of my base! Now!"

" What is it with you and my head?" Dib muttered. He tapped at a small computer readout on his wrist for a moment, " Ship! Analyze this signal, and… Code 938? The Call? What's that?"

Zims' self-confidence fractured for a second, and it showed in his face, " GIR! Defensive Mode! Intruder alert! Activate the security system!"

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It was time.

" Alright, you've had long enough, Vortian scum." Tenn smirked.

The guard stood to attention, leveling a laser at the Irken. The room was filled with the kind of silence that only dramatic tension tight enough to cut butter can bring. Spiderlegs extended from the Invaders' PAK, and Tenn moved swiftly through the tense atmosphere.

There was a thud, a crunch, a splashing sound, then a kind of gurgling whimper.


	4. I Wrote Lard Nar Into The Story, Too

Disoriented, limping and covered from head to foot in maple syrup, Dib stumbled down the street. He was fairly certain that GIR was no longer pursuing him, " That robot likes maple syrup _way _too much."

The buzzing began as Dib rounded the corner onto his street. A red light pulsed from his garage. An observer might have thought that a car alarm had gone off, but Dib knew what was hidden in there. The feeling was altogether more ominous.

Inside the garage lay deafness and blindness. The fusion of light and sound was almost continuous, and so complete that sight and sound were driven out and replaced with The Call. Even Dib, who had made the journey hundreds of times, had trouble navigating to the ship. He fell into the cockpit, slamming his head against a control panel. Something was pressed, something else beeped and the world gradually fell into silence and darkness…

… Which was replaced by movement.

A slow vibration, growing stronger by the second, and a sound like a jet turbine. Rubbing the back of his head, Dib rose into a sitting position, lingering blissfully in the few seconds between concussion and realization. A sudden change of altitude forced all thoughts of head injuries and brain damage from his mind as the ship burst through the roof, Irken metal shouldering Professor Membranes' space-age super-roof aside as if it wasn't there.

The ship continued to ascend, and Dib pressed his nose against the viewing dome, peering out in panic at the rapidly disappearing view of his house. If he squinted, Dib could see a small gray form rolling around on the floor through the hole in the roof. It appeared to be leaking maple syrup.

A tiny, resigned squeak penetrated the dome, and several screens flickered to life, advanced diagnostic software locating the source of the sound. A 3D model of the ship was projected into the air; it rotated in front of Dibs' eyes, revealing the underside of the Irken cruiser. There, stuck to one of the rear spikes with a glob of syrup that seemed to have no immediate plans of letting go, was a tiny purple moose.

" Squeak!" It squeaked.

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An embarrassed silence filled the cockpit of the Voot Cruiser. Zim sat with clenched teeth as he keyed in the command to delete a portion of the flight log. No one need ever know that he had been flying in the wrong direction for the past three hours.

The problem was, a Voot could cover a lot of ground in three hours. Luckily, a wormhole was due to open nearby in an hour that would drop Zim right on top of Meekrob. The Tallest need never know.

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Lard Nar squirmed uncomfortably in his command chair. The inbuilt motion sensors took this to mean he wanted to turn, and the chair swiveled left. He was getting tired of that.

This new ship wasn't as good as the old Vortian one. The chair was only the first of its' problems: the radar rarely worked properly, there were consistent problems with the power core, and the weapons sometimes fired by themselves. The Meekrob had promised to fix it, and the captain wondered when they would start.

" Uh, Captain? The prisoner has escaped. She's heading for the escape pods."

" Oh? Well… send some men down there to wait for her. Let's not make it _too_ easy for her." Lard Nar grinned at his own genius, " Any word on the Armada?"

" Last reports state they've mobilized. The current route and local wormhole activity suggest they'll converge on this point in about an hour. They're going for a full frontal assault. Take us all out in one go, sir."

" Notify the planet, watch their progress carefully, and-" the chair suddenly began rotating wildly, " GET A MECHANIC UP HERE NOW!"


	5. Mysterious Happenings And Anime Jokes

AN:So, there's a lot of switching POV in this one. I just noticed that as I was preveiwing it. Weird. Another interesting thing is that, without ever seeing it written, I spelled Shloonktapooxis' name right.

Well, that's my ramblings for now.

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Planet Vort had undergone some changes since the beginning of the Irken occupation. It hung without orbit in space, encased in a metal shell that served as the roof of the 'Vort Military Research Facility'. Transport ships moved constantly in and out of the docking ports that pockmarked the surface of the shell.

The inside of the shell was a vast cavern filled from planets' surface to high roof with row upon row, column upon column of prison cells. Sound echoed constantly around the prison; metal clanging on metal, welding, and the occasional explosion. The sounds of fevered working.

But one cell is silent. Slumped in the corner of cell 493 is Prisoner 493. For the fifth time, he pulled aside a wall panel and produced a small, button-laden remote from a small cavity. He absently ran a finger over the big red button in the center of it, all too aware of the cliché. It had taken months to smuggle all the materials needed to build this. For the Vortians, it was a priceless object.

It had taken months to build the remote, but only weeks for Vortian built weapons to become standard Irken military issue.

_Forgive me, Lard Nar._ 493 thought grimly as he stowed the remote safely behind the wall.

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Zim was adrift in a sea of color, the walls of the wormhole constantly shifting. He had long since surrendered control of the ship to the currents of the phenomenon, allowing it to pull him gently along… At least, that was the plan.

In truth the wormhole was more raging tempest that calm sea. Both Voot cruiser and pilot tumbled through space at breakneck speed. Zim had curled into a ball, eyes squeezed shut to stop them falling out.

_I'll be there soon. I'll be there soon. I'll be…_

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" Uh, captain? The prisoner has entered the docking bay. She's… dispatching our men with extreme prejudice." Shloonktapooxis turned away from his screen.

" Well, don't let her out. Send in some more men to keep her company, and then lock the bay down. Nothing gets in or out. Also, begin the charge routine for the beam. What's the ETA for the Armada?" Lard Nar said, turning his head to compensate for the still rotating chair.

" Half an hour, sir."

" Outstanding. Inform the planet." The captain smiled to himself, before adding, " Oh. Hey, Shloonk, take a break. We won't need you until later."

" Hooray!" The alien cheered, turning back to his screen. Lard Nar could see a cartoon paused on it. Shloonktapooxis slammed his head into the keyboard, and by some miracle pressed the play button.

" Let's Gekiga-In!" drifted out of the speakers before Shloonk somehow pulled speakers over his head.

" Ugh. How did I get stuck with a crew like this?" Lard Nar muttered.

" You say something, boss?"

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Dib would be happy to know that his ship was doing much better than Zims'. That is, if he wasn't hurtling through a wormhole, completely out of control to an unknown destination.

He had tried every trick in his arsenal, applied everything he had learned about Irken technology, and he hadn't even managed turned on the headlights. Once, a large block of Irken text had appeared on the holographic display, but without the aid of the ships' computer Dib couldn't translate it.

And the squeaking! Dib wondered what was keeping the moose stuck to the hull: The G-forces of escaping Earths' orbit, the vacuum of space, the bizarre environment of the wormhole, nothing had been able to dislodge the tiny creature. But it had distressed the poor thing no end. Weak, frightened squeaks sounded constantly, even in space where no sound could travel.

" Hey! Shut up!" Dib yelled, stomping angrily on the floor.

The squeaks became louder.

The ship rounded a curve, and the end of the wormhole swam into view.

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" My Tallest! Our scopes have caught sight of the enemy!"

" Ugh. That's not news. Our scopes are incredibly powerful. Fine examples of Irken technology." Tallest Red said smugly.

" But aren't they Vor-" The attendant caught himself at the last moment.

" Full speed ahead. Let's get this over with. I've got pizza cookin'!" Purple blurted.

" I agree. Get going. Arm the weapons, prime the fighters, and get the pilots to battle stations. We're officially in a combat situation."

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More Authors' Notes!: Anybody who can tell me what completely fictional TV show Shloonktapooxis was watching gets a prize. The prize of recognition. To be honest I only added that bit because I thought it was funny, but this can be fn too! Whee!


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